Evidence of Extraterrestrial Fossils found on Meteorite. Dec 29, 2012.

Originally posted by gortex
reply to post by draknoir2

 

Oh now I remember .. this guy
Egg found in Martian Meteorite
Extraterrestrial Life is a censored subject says Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe!

Bummer

And he's not the Chandra Observatory's namesake.

These are interesting findings.

The general idea is by no means new: the Journal of Cosmology has published a few papers with micrographs of such structures, advancing the theory that they are diatoms of extraterrestrial origin before. I might be mistaken, but just going from memory I think these claimed diatoms are more intricate than the ones presented in past papers, which probably favours a biological origin for them. However, the authors reasons for ruling out terrestrial cross-contamination are less than compelling, and there is also a still-strong possibility that they are crystals of a non-biological origin.

Finally, without devolving into an ad-hominem attack, it must be noted that the quality of the Journal of Cosmology's peer-review process has been questioned extensively in the past. That doesn't indict the content of the article, of course, but it does mean that we have to look at it with heightened skepticism compared with articles appearing in more scholarly sources.

Diogenes

Originally posted by draknoir2
reply to post by Brighter

 

N. Chandra Wickramasinghe, Ph.D.
Executive Editor, Astrobiology Cometary Panspermia

Not the most objective of editors in this case, I would think.

Looks less like a "peer reviewed journal" and more like a forum to push his personal agenda [panspermia].

It's certainly not unheard of to publish a paper in a journal you yourself are affiliated with. It's often unavoidable. This is common especially with the leaders in various fields. They're often associated professionally with organizations for which they're also a contributor.

Obviously, in such cases the individual submitting the paper doesn't review their own paper. There's a panel of editors for a reason.

This is not to mention the fact that it's not 'his' (Wickramasinghe's) journal. Rudolph Schild is the editor-in-chief and would make any final decisions. The paper would have also had to have passed the critical and professional scrutiny of all of the other editors for the paper to even be considered for publication. And I'm fairly certain that none of those professional scientists would want to approve a paper for publication that would embarrass them in any way.

Originally posted by Brighter


Obviously, in such cases the individual submitting the paper doesn't review their own paper. There's a panel of editors for a reason.

Obviously?



The very fact that he's the executive editor of the area in which his own dubious papers are frequently submitted calls into question the objectivity of the Journal's review process.

reply to post by Brighter

And I'm fairly certain that none of those professional scientists would want to approve a paper for publication that would embarrass them in any way.

You mean like Hoover's paper?
www.space.com...
www.newscientist.com...

reply to post by Phage


I did a search for any reputable agency calling this a hoax, and I can't find any. It is a bit worrisome to me that I can't find any articles on these microbes in Scientific American or Journal of Science.

I hope this is true, dammit!

Originally posted by draknoir2

Originally posted by Brighter


Obviously, in such cases the individual submitting the paper doesn't review their own paper. There's a panel of editors for a reason.

Obviously?



The very fact that he's the executive editor of the area in which his own dubious papers are frequently submitted calls into question the objectivity of the Journal's review process.

Well, the problem is that you'd have to assume astronomical levels of incompetency and widespread dishonesty among this group of scientists, which just seems implausible.

You might not have any problem assuming such. I most certainly would.

You'd also have to assume that all of these established Ph.D.'s (some associated with institutions such as Harvard and Oxford) are so utterly incompetent that they don't even understand the basic guidelines of a peer-review process.

Seems a bit of a 'stretch' to me.

reply to post by jiggerj

Bad science is not the same thing as a hoax.

reply to post by Brighter

You'd also have to assume that all of these established Ph.D.'s (some associated with institutions such as Harvard and Oxford) are so utterly incompetent that they don't even understand the basic guidelines of a peer-review process.

You may want to read about another researcher's experience with the journal.
leilabattison.wordpress.com...
For example:

There was also a small matter of me being credited with a PhD I do not yet have. Not something to cause complaint from someone like me, on a relatively un-ground breaking paper like mine, but still something completely unfounded. It now appears that they have done the same with Richard Hoover. On all NASA Marshall Flight Centre (his employer) sites he is listed as Mr, and yet, the Journal of Cosmology have given him a Dr., as they did with me. Some critics suggest that this is Hoover himself trying to overstate his position, but I can attest that it is, in fact, coming straight from the journal.

one of the comments after the article in the op...

This is just a normal rock that was on the road. I am sure an Appuhami must have peed on it and what they see now is the fungi on the bread he ate the day before.

now thats funny stuff right there

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by jiggerj

 

Bad science is not the same thing as a hoax.

Sure, but shouldn't those practicing good science jump on those that have gone to the dark side?

Man, I told everyone I know about these MICROBES FROM OUTER SPACE! Now everyone is going to tell everyone about THE IDIOT THAT BELIEVES IN MICROBES FROM OUTER SPACE!

They have discovered in the past some compounds found on comets that could create life if they were in some later stage, how is this any further in being news?

reply to post by jiggerj

The article was published a few days ago in a journal which few scientists pay attention to.
Give the process a chance.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Brighter

 

You'd also have to assume that all of these established Ph.D.'s (some associated with institutions such as Harvard and Oxford) are so utterly incompetent that they don't even understand the basic guidelines of a peer-review process.

You may want to read about another researcher's experience with the journal.
leilabattison.wordpress.com...
For example:

There was also a small matter of me being credited with a PhD I do not yet have. Not something to cause complaint from someone like me, on a relatively un-ground breaking paper like mine, but still something completely unfounded. It now appears that they have done the same with Richard Hoover. On all NASA Marshall Flight Centre (his employer) sites he is listed as Mr, and yet, the Journal of Cosmology have given him a Dr., as they did with me. Some critics suggest that this is Hoover himself trying to overstate his position, but I can attest that it is, in fact, coming straight from the journal.

edit on 1/14/2013 by Phage because: (no reason given)

Far more egregious mistakes have been made in leading scientific journals (sometimes with real-world health effects resulting from errors and data falsification in major medical journals such as the Lancet), yet that doesn't discredit all of the previously published or future papers of that journal.

You seem to be implying that an unrelated fact has some kind of direct bearing on the paper at hand. Yet it has no more direct bearing to the paper at hand than, say, Andrew Wakefield's retracted Lancet article discredits any of the other articles in the Lancet.

The point is that it's important to focus on the actual content of a paper without getting distracted by extraneous issues, as enticing as it may be.

reply to post by Brighter

The point is that it's important to focus on the actual content of a paper without getting distracted by extraneous issues, as enticing as it may be.

You mean extraneous issues like a rather unorthodox review system? Did you read the whole article I linked?

The meteorite (unconfirmed) was found on December 29th. It took 12 days for the rock to get shipped to the UK, analyzed, and have this unequivocal positive identification (based on morphology) published. You really see no reason for raised eyebrows?

The intricacy of the regular patterns of “holes”, ridges and indentations are again unquestionably biological, and this is impossible to interpret rationally as arising from an inorganic crystallisation process.

www.buckingham.ac.uk...

reply to post by Phage

The meteorite (unconfirmed) was found on December 29th. It took 12 days for the rock to get shipped to the UK, analyzed, and have this unequivocal positive identification (based on morphology) published. You really see no reason for raised eyebrows?

I hate it when you make sense. I hate it! Grmmfff, no I don't.

Originally posted by ImpactoR
They have discovered in the past some compounds found on comets that could create life if they were in some later stage, how is this any further in being news?

These things weren't about creating life. They WERE life!

Originally posted by Brighter

Originally posted by drivers1492
reply to post by draknoir2

 

Yeah not the best for sources and I am highly doubtful but we can hope.

The executive editor of The Journal of Cosmology is Dr. Rudolph Schild, an astrophysicist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Here's a list of the other editors for this journal:

Journal of Cosmology Editors

Sir Roger Penrose (Oxford) is even a guest editor.

These aren't exactly 'light-weights'.

This paper should at least be given serious consideration and be scrutinized by the wider scientific community.

Let's take a look at Rudolph Shild

Schild is a proponent of "magnetospheric eternally collapsing objects" (MECOs),[3] an alternative to black holes.[4][5] These results are often published in Journal of Cosmology, an astronomy journal edited by Schild himself,[6] while his other research is published in mainstream astronomy journals such as MNRAS and the Astronomical Journal.

Hmmm... more controversial, highly speculative papers frequently published in the Journal of Cosmology, authored by the editor-in-chief, no less.

Seems they all get published in the friendly confines.

Originally posted by jiggerj
reply to post by Phage

 

The meteorite (unconfirmed) was found on December 29th. It took 12 days for the rock to get shipped to the UK, analyzed, and have this unequivocal positive identification (based on morphology) published. You really see no reason for raised eyebrows?

I hate it when you make sense. I hate it! Grmmfff, no I don't.

....and where is the independent confirmation from an unaffiliated lab and personnel? It would be a more scientific study if independently confirmed....IMO.

Originally posted by Phage
You mean extraneous issues like a rather unorthodox review system?

Yes, precisely that. That fact is extraneous to the content of the paper. If you want to have an intelligent discussion, actually raise some points of contention with the paper itself.

For example, Fig. 7 on page 8 contains a side-by-side morphological comparison of the fossilized diatom embedded in the sample with a known terrestrial diatom.

What supporting evidence do you have that the structure in Fig. 7 is non-biological?

And if it's not a fossilized diatom, then what do you propose it is?